Modern portable consumer and industrial electronics provide increasing levels of functionality to support modern life including location-based information services. This is especially true for client devices such as navigation systems, cellular phones, portable digital assistants, and multifunction devices.
As users adopt mobile location-based service devices, new and old usages begin to take advantage of this new device space. There are many solutions to take advantage of this new device opportunity. One existing approach is to use location information to provide navigation services, such as a global positioning service (GPS) navigation system for a mobile device.
In response to consumer demand, navigation systems are providing ever-increasing amounts of information requiring these systems to improve usability, performance, and accuracy. This information includes transaction information, map and routing data, business information, and local driving conditions. The demand for more information and the need to provide user-friendly experience, low latency, and accuracy continue to challenge the providers of navigation systems.
Navigation system and service providers are continually making improvements in order to be competitive. In navigation services, demand for better usability and functionality by providing additional information is increasingly important. Some navigation systems and services allow the creation and management of location specific information as it relates to routing and target destination selection. Connecting location with point of interest information including ranking information could enable new categories of services such as predictive destination selection and improved point of interest selection.
Thus, a need still remains for a navigation system with point of interest ranking to efficiently manage and measure the time and location sensitive information about a point of interest and to provide flexible point of interest search and selection mechanisms. Due to the growth in the use of navigation systems, it is increasingly critical that answers be found to these problems. In view of the ever-increasing competitive pressures, along with growing consumer expectations and the diminishing opportunities for meaningful product differentiation in the marketplace, it is critical that answers be found for these problems. Additionally, the need to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and performance, and meet competitive pressures adds an even greater urgency to the critical necessity for finding answers to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.